Awakened
by Treenahasthaal
Summary: Luke Skywalker knew they thought he had fled. He knew some thought him a coward… and perhaps he was. He had not been the first Jedi to do so… but perhaps he would be the last. *spoilers for The Force Awakens*


AN: Here I am jumping on the bandwagon of The Force Awakens. This came to me and wouldn't leave me alone until I had written it. I never really saw myself writing an older Luke as I am pretty much stuck on the farmboy, the pilot and fledgling Jedi, so this one caught me by surprise. I hope you enjoy it.

My thanks to Rachel C. for reading over it and for using a Jedi mind trick to compel me to give it the title she suggested.

 **Disclaimer: All Star Wars characters and situations belong wholly to Disney/Lucasfilm. I write them just for fun...**

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Awakened

Waves crested and crashed against the rocks far below the cliff face casting white water across dark stone. Birds wheeled and looped below the heavy, overcast, clouds; their keening cries a lament that sliced sharply through the air. The smell of wet grass, damp dirt and salt hung thick and heavy around him, just as his robes weighted down his body. The sting of the sharp wind chilled his face, nettling his skin with tiny, piercing needles that left his cheeks numb with cold.

He saw it all, felt it all; sensations so intense and burdensome that they would have staggered and dropped any normal being to their knees for among them was the call, the beckon, of the Dark Side.

It was always so enticing. So easy, so quick to rise and slow to fall. Alluring and appealing…

…just give in. Why fight? You feel it. You want it…

" _You want this, don't you?"_

Luke Skywalker closed his eyes, as he had so many years before, and forced it from him. Pushed it away and denied it a nesting place.

" _Never, I'll not turn to the Dark Side…"_

He hung his head, eyes still closed. He had felt it all; the slow, insidious, crawl of darkness and evil as the First Order rose from the smouldering ashes of the Empire. It was fuelled by Snoke and fanned to new flames by Kylo Ren.

… _Ben… Ben… Child… I failed you… I failed you as surely as Obi-wan failed my father…_

He had felt the sudden, crushing, deaths of billions of beings. The blast of fear and horror and loss that had seared through the Force had sent him stumbling down a treacherous, rain swept, stone path. He had clutched at his heart, clutched at the wall of wet rock, gaining purchase on one, only to lose it on another. His cry of agony had startled nesting birds and sent them fleeing into the darkening skies.

It had taken him a long time to gain control of his feelings. To pull his aching bones…

… _Force, he was getting old…_

…from the saturated ground and ascend to his spartan home. It had taken a warm fire and a hot cup of soup to _quell_ the shivering of his body, but still his senses mourned, still the Force reverberated with the anguish of great loss.

And now this new loss…

He had sensed Leia looking for him. He had felt her searching through the Force for him many times over the years and had given her just enough in return to reassure her that he lived. Enough and no more.

His mission here, his time here, was too important, too precious, to give away his location. Not even to his sister.

Luke knew they thought he had fled. He knew some thought him a coward… and perhaps he was. Ben Solo had turned. Leia's son had become besotted by his grandfather's shadow and had been an easy target for those who clung to darkness; those like Snoke. After the massacre of his students at the hands of the Knights of Ren he had left, fled across the galaxy; leaving only breadcrumbs and legend in his wake.

He had not been the first Jedi to do so… but perhaps he would be the last.

" _Last of the Jedi are you, pass on what you have learned."_

Last of the Jedi.

How easy it would be just to be that.

The last…

How easy it would be to ignore what was happening in the wider galaxy and stay here and hide. How easy to die and take the Jedi with him.

No more.

No more fighting, no more pain, no more…

Luke shook his head, a small smile of self-recrimination curling his lips.

If he had truly felt that way, if he truly believed the Galaxy no longer needed the Jedi Knights then he would not be here. He would not have come to this place.

But still it weighed him down. The death of worlds, the death of friends and family, the death of…

He took in a breath, steeling himself against the surge of grief he knew would rise with his thoughts. His memories.

" _Then we'll do it real quiet like."_

Decades ago he would have recklessly abandoned his post, he would have disobeyed direct orders, thrown scorn on his teachers and left his training in a hurried charge to save his friends.

His friend.

Han.

The winds picked up, caught the hood of his robes but he grasped it with his hand; his right hand, the metallic fingers pitted and worn from his years on this island. The hand that had replaced the one lost on Bespin because he had overestimated himself and underestimated his opponent.

" _I am your father."_

Eyes still closed, mind turned in, he righted his hood and tucked his hands back into his sleeves.

Han.

It was strange that a single death could often be more painful than the deaths of many. That one sharp cut to the heart, that one loss, could drive the breath from your body leaving you gasping for air, leaving you feeling barren and bereft.

Han.

He had felt Han's end approaching. Had seen a vision of the unstable red blade being driven through his friend's…

… _his brother's…_

…body.

He had been helpless to stop it. He knew it could not be stopped. Ben would do what he had been unable to do, what he had balked against when it was asked of him by those who served the light. Ben Solo would commit the act that would root him securely to the Dark Side of the Force.

The son had killed the father.

Ben would be stronger now. His pain and rage would feed him all the more…

...but…

…with his final gesture Han had given his son love. Had shown his son unconditional forgiveness.

Let the boy consider that in quiet moments, for that was Han's victory and the reason for his sacrifice.

And Luke found that he could be at peace with the knowledge that Han's death had purpose.

He opened his eyes, lifted them to the heavens as the ship, as the Millennium Falcon, dropped below the cloud cover.

He had known they were coming. He had felt them. He had been waiting for them.

The girl and the Wookiee.

He had known that events would one day uncover her, just as they had conspired to uncover him from his hiding place on Tatooine.

You could never hide from your destiny… even if you didn't know that you had a destiny.

He watched as the battered freighter dropped lower and approached the island, watched as the struts fell and took the Falcon's weight as it settled onto the rock.

Chewbacca emerged first, then the girl and… he smiled, he couldn't help it… Artoo Detoo; the little droid that had started it all for him by showing him a hologram of a pretty princess.

But there was no Leia with them; his sister had duties and had never shirked from them; not when her world was destroyed before her eyes, not when her lover was torn from her, not when she had learned who her father was, not when her child rejected her and the light, and not when her husband perished at their son's hands.

And Luke wished that he could compartmentalise like his sister; that he could sometimes, just sometimes, not feel anything at all. But he was Jedi, he was attuned to the Force and that meant he felt everything.

It was the girl who came to him alone. It was the girl who climbed the rocky steps and the worn grass of the trailing and winding path up the exposed hillside.

There was power there… so much power. Light and darkness already competing within her heart.

This child had known loneliness and abandonment just as he had, except he'd had family; he'd had his aunt and uncle. This girl had been left with no-one and had survived. This girl had known friendship and loss. Belonging and grief. Happiness and anger. Courage and fear.

She reminded him of himself; his younger self. So much potential and hope.

So much unrealised power for good or evil.

Luke could feel her behind him now, could hear the heavy breathing of her exertion. He could sense her indecision and doubt as she gazed at his back.

He turned around, threw back his hood, and looked upon her familiar features as his heart broke. Dark eyes, dark hair, slim of build and strong of heart.

Silently, desperately, she reached out to him. Offering him the same thing that Obi-Wan Kenobi had offered over three decades before in a tiny sandstone building on the edge of the Jundland Wastes.

A chance to emerge into the Galaxy at large. A chance to put right what had gone so terribly wrong. A chance to be the Jedi Knight he was supposed to be. A chance to teach and pass on the knowledge he had been entrusted with by those who had gone before him.

He did hesitate, he did allow himself a moment of uncertainty, because he knew what this would mean; not just for himself, but for Leia and for the girl before him and for those she loved.

He had seen it. He had seen it all…

Luke briefly closed his eyes, feeling the dreadful weight of his past, of his future, of his fears and concerns…

…and he let it all go, dismissed it, allowed it to dissipate until all he was left with was the Force and the path laid out before him.

He opened his eyes and, once more, he reached out and took his father's sword.

ooOOoo


End file.
